Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Making Murder "Reasonable": How the Ferguson PD Will Whitewash the Killing of Michael E. Brown (UPDATE, August 15)

NOTE: In addition to the postscript at the bottom of the page, look for additional updates in the blog section of www.LewRockwell.com.

Edward Garner was unarmed when he was shot in the back of
the head by Memphis Police Officer Elton Hymon. At the time, the short,
slightly built teenager was scaling a fence attempting to flee. Hymon knew the
suspect was unarmed, and that the only threat he posed was one of escape. When
Garner’s lifeless body was searched later, all that was found was ten dollars he
had stolen from a nearby house.

At
the time, Tennessee state law dictated that a police officer confronting a
resisting or fleeing suspect “may use all the necessary means to effect the
arrest” even when the suspect didn’t pose a threat to others. Garner’s father
filed a federal civil rights suit against the Memphis PD that took
eleven years to reach the US Supreme Court, which ruled that even where
there is “probable cause to seize a suspect, an officer may not always do so by
killing him. The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony
suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable.”

What this means is that any
use of deadly force is “reasonable” if the subjective perceptions of the officer
lead him to believe he is threatened, and courts have traditionally been
disinclined to “second-guess” those actions. This arrangement, in which the latitude
enjoyed by police in using deadly force is defined by the timidity and
dishonesty of the officer, is called the "objective reasonableness”
standard.

Officer Hymon was responding to a report that a prowler was
in the neighborhood long after sunset, and on the available evidence it’s clear
that Garner had committed a burglary. By way of contrast, the
still-unidentified officer who shot Michael Brown accosted the victim and his
friend, Dorian Johnson, on an uncluttered street in a quiet neighborhood on
a previously uneventful Saturday afternoon.

Neither of the young men was doing anything suspicious to
justify a police “contact,” so the officer synthesized one out of the ether: According
to Johnson, as the cop drove by he bellowed at the pedestrians to “get the
f**k on the sidewalk.”

Johnson, displaying immeasurably more civility than the
armed functionary supposedly there to protect and serve him, politely explained
that he was only a few hundred feet from his home. He recalls that the officer
took offense, slammed on his brakes, threw his vehicle into
reverse — nearly hitting the pedestrians -- and growled, “What’d you say?”

According
to Johnson’s account, the cop began to exit his vehicle, but his door slammed
into Brown. At roughly the same time, the uniformed assailant grabbed the
terrified 18-year-old by his neck. As Brown tried to escape, Johnson testifies,
the officer repeatedly sneered, “I’m gonna shoot you.”

A
moment later, the first of several gunshots was heard. Brown, who may have been
grazed by the round, turned to flee, and Johnson quickly joined him. The
officer fired a second shot at the fleeing victims, hitting Brown, who fell to
the ground with his hands in the air, pleading: “I don’t have a gun — stop
shooting!” The assailant fired several more shots, killing the unarmed teenager
outside an apartment complex. His body was left about 35 feet from the vehicle,
surrounded by empty casings from the officer’s gun. Brown was unarmed.

In fact, one of those individuals … allegedly pushed
the police officer back into the car where he physically assaulted the police
officer. It is our understanding at this point in the investigation that within
the police car there was a struggle over the officer’s weapon. There was at
least one shot fired within the car, After that officer … came back out of the
car, he exited his vehicle, and there was a shooting that occurred where the
officer in fact shot the suspect, and … they were fatal injuries.”

Johnson’s
version, on the other hand, depicts a police officer trolling for trouble. That
characterization is facially credible, owing to what is known about the
institutional character of law enforcement. Additionally, that testimony –
unlike the shooter’s account -- was offered first-hand, in public, by a witness
who is not afraid to be known by both his name and his face.

Furthermore,
Johnson’s claim that the officer was forced back into his seat after slamming
the driver’s side door into Brown would explain how he was “pushed … back into
the car” without being shoved into the vehicle by the victim. Johnson’s claim
that the officer threatened to shoot Brown would both explain why a “struggle”
over the gun would have occurred, and justify any action the victim took to
defend himself. There is no dispute that Brown was unarmed and attempting to
surrender when he was fatally shot.

Immediately
after the killing, the officer who shot Brown was placed on paid vacation and sheltered
within a security cocoon. More importantly, he sought refuge
in his supposed rights as defined by the “Garrity
rule,” under which he cannot face criminal or civil prosecution on the
basis of anything he discloses to police investigators.

Assuming
that standard protocols are being followed, the officer is being advised by
both his union representative and defense counsel, and his narrative is being
tailored to fit the standard adumbrated in the Garner ruling. In fact, the story retailed by Chief Bermar – which could
be little more than a carefully cropped version of Johnson’s testimony – is,
most likely, very close to the final draft of what will become the Official
Version.

For
this reason it is not only possible, but likely, that the Ferguson PD will
essentially concede the accuracy of Dorian Johnson’s recollection, while insisting
that the conduct described by that witness (and others on the scene) is
appropriate under the “reasonable officer” standard.

It wouldn’t matter how the
“encounter” began, or whether the officer was acting on “reasonable suspicion”
when he snarled a profane directive at the two inoffensive young men. Once the
officer had decided to favor them with his attention, they were subject to his
will, and could be detained, abused, or killed at his discretion – and his
judgment is not subject to review by sublunary beings not clad in the vestments
of the state’s punitive caste.

If
(more likely, “when”) this version of events is officially ratified, the
department will praise itself for its “professionalism”; the victim’s family
will file a lawsuit that will eventually be settled by the city’s insurance
carrier; and the long-suffering
black residents of Ferguson
will resume their lives under what amounts to a low-grade military occupation.

UPDATE: "Any Felony Rule," Velvet Gloves for the Iron Fist Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, in a press conference notable for its brevity, identified the officer who shot Michael Brown as Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of his department. Information distributed to the media included reports suggesting that Brown was a suspect in a strong-arm robbery of a package of cigars at a local convenience store. Still photographs, reportedly of the incident in the local Ferguson Market*, show a large young man resembling Brown involved in what appeared to be an assault on a much smaller individual in the store.

If Brown was a suspect in a crime of that kind, this case would have uncanny similarities to the 1974 incident in which another teenaged suspect, Edward Garner, was fatally shot while attempting to flee from a Memphis police officer following a burglary. As noted previously, that case went before the Supreme Court a decade later, resulting in the 1985 Tennessee v. Garner ruling, in which the Court held that "The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable.” This was a rejection of the "Any Felony Rule" under which officers in many states, including Tennessee, were authorized to use deadly force to stop a fleeing or resisting suspect.

The "Any Felony Rule," it should be pointed out, didn't enjoy universal approval, even in the supposedly barbarous 19th Century. In an 1858 editorial, the New York Times expressed alarm over the promiscuous use of lethal force by officers of the newly created NYPD against fleeing suspects: “The pistols are not used in self-defense, but to stop the men who are running away. They are considered substitutes for swift feet and long arms… [W]e doubt the propriety of employing them for such a purpose. A Policeman has no right to shoot a man for running away from him.”

Disclosure of Officer Wilson's name will increase public pressure for a criminal investigation into the shooting. However, there is still abundant reason to believe that the likely outcome of this matter will be a finding that Wilson -- owing to his perception of the situation -- acted justifiably under the "reasonable officer" standard. This may be complicated somewhat by eyewitness accounts that Brown was surrendering at the time he was fatally shot.

Chief Jackson claims that Wilson was "injured" in the reported struggle with Brown, and that he received treatment at a nearby hospital. No explanation has been provided for the fact that Brown, after being shot at a distance of about 35 feet from Wilson's patrol vehicle, was left face-down in the street and received no medical attention. His lifeless body was eventually carried away in the back of an SUV

One "emerging lesson" from Ferguson, apparently, is that after authorities employ the Iron Fist, they should quickly deploy people dressed in velvet gloves. Successful counter-insurgency operations, after all, require an effort to "win the hearts and minds" of the targeted population. __*I originally mis-identified the store where the robbery took place. My thanks to a reader for the correction.

57 comments:

There is absolutely no reason for police officers to be trusted with more responsibility and yet have less accountability that everyday citizens, and there is absolutely no reason to have laws on the books that destroy the lives of otherwise law abiding people for trivial reasons.Then there's the fact that more Americans have been killed by the police than in the wars in the Middle East during the same time interval ... And the rate of police killing citizens is increasing rapidly as police forces become more militarized."Officer Friendly" was murdered by a SWAT team during a no knock raid on his home at 0-dark-thirty. Unfortunately, they hit the wrong address, but despite killing Officer Friendly, his dog, and his wife, and burning the house down around them, the SWAT officers were found to have done no wrong and to have conducted themselves in accordance with department policies and guidelines on the use of force.

At some point, people are going to decide to get justice on their own. When that happens, Heaven help the others in the criminal "Justice System" who shielded these murderers, or even those who simply remained employed by this corrupt system.

From the bits and pieces of information which get here to Britain, after being smuggled around the lamestream media's gate keeping activities.

It seems that the residents of Ferguson are making their justifiable displeasure felt. Zero Hedge reported just last night that the FAA had ordered an air exclusion zone around Ferguson.

John Ross (himself from Misouri), in "unintended consequences" noted that black communities have long been conscious of the recreational murder of their family, friends and neighbours by those claiming special privilege.

That view was echoed by Robert H Churcill in his academic study published under the title "to shake their guns..."

Although this was recognized by many people with other backgrounds who took part in the 1990s militia movement, there are still a majority outside of the black community who automatically assume that to get murdered by a badge wearer - you must have been doing something wrong.

How much exposure to the truth does it take to get people to acknowledge the simple truisms:

If you grant a group special privilege to hurt people - People who like to hurt others will be attracted to that group.

If immunity is granted for murdering people - it won't somehow result in less killing.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

I'd like to see the ballistics evidence, any recordings that might be available, autopsy and an actual statement from the officer.

I don't trust the witness evidence any more than I would trust the unsupported word of the cop or the bloviations of Al Sharpton.

On LRC you said that the local populace regarded the police as an army of occupation. That may be true. But I'll wager that for everyone who feels that way, there was another person cursing the police for not discharging their duties during the rioting – e.g. the business owners and other quiet citizens.

I'd like to see the ballistics evidence, any recordings that might be available, autopsy and an actual statement from the officer.

As would I. Unfortunately, police officials have said that the department's recently acquired video recorders were not activated at the time, and the chief has decreed that the officer will not be identified unless he is charged with a crime -- which underscores the problems with the procedures I describe above.

I don't trust the witness evidence any more than I would trust the unsupported word of the cop or the bloviations of Al Sharpton.

All the more reason for the police to be candid and transparent in cases of this kind. If the Ferguson PD follows established protocols, there will be no disclosure, no accountability, and the field will be left free to the collectivist herd-poisoners and racial incendiaries.

As to the relative reliability of the witness account vs. whatever the police eventually disclose -- Why did the police refuse to interview Dorian Johnson, if the objective is to find out what actually happened? Why did they summarily dismiss the testimony of the only witness who saw the entire "encounter"?

in liberal san diego back in the 1980's sagon penn got away with the murder of the century or self defense of the century. One of the few times that a black man fought back against racist cops and lived to tell about it. Police can kill anyone for any reason at anytime, great job to have if you like killing people. Even hitman follow rules and have consequences for there actions.

The key to unlock the cage we all find ourselves in at this time is the judiciary. This branch of government was created, in part, to protect the people from the ambitions and excesses of the other branches of government. Nearly all important issues are ultimately determined in a courtroom. Citizens no longer have direct access to grand juries and find that their complaints are first filtered through the political office of the district attorney who will routinely refuse to prosecute anyone who is politically connected. Litigants are routinely denied standing or due process in the courts to frustrate those who seek justice from the state.In Marbury v. Madison the supreme court ruled that an unconstitutional statute is void “ab initio” or from it’s inception. It reasonably follows that one of the first issues before any court should be the constitutionality of the law involved. Judges swear an oath to support and defend the constitution, within which is found your right to due process of law. Why is it that a denial of due process, the very definition of a void judgement, per Black’s 6th, never renders any judgement void or results in prosecution of the judge for perjury of his oath?Judges are the gatekeepers of society. We depend upon them for redress and remedy. They have failed. In order to obtain remedy we must take back our courts by holding judges accountable.“Jail For Judges” is a concept which creates an external review board to hear complaints of judges actions and negligence and to sanction judges up to and including imprisonment. When judges must choose between according due process to litigants and going to jail for failure to do so, that is when people will receive due process and not a minute before. When “Jail For Judges” becomes law in any single jurisdiction, i.e. any state of the union, a person need only move to that state long enough to establish residency in order to qualify to petition the court for vacation of a facially void judgement, which is the court record of a case which demonstrates a denial of due process.People must qualify ballot initiatives to institute “Jail For Judges” and re-institute direct access for the public to grand juries to facilitate indictments against govt. actors who commit crimes. In this way the system may be used to purify itself and to return our country to a constitutionally restrained republic.

Looking at the coverage which is getting out of Ferguson (I hadn't realized what a tiny little place it is, with only 21K population - barely a market town), the cops seem intent on escalating the situation.

What we know about cops, suggests that all the encouragement that some of their number need to keep escalating a situation is enough slack in their leashes.

The late novelist, Tom Sharpe's fictional apartheid era bufoon and police chief; Kommandant van Heerden, and his minions were more restrained and more professional than the clowns on display at Ferguson.

The gap between Tom Sharpe's blood thirstily black comedy (no pun intended)and reality on the ground at Ferguson, likely has a lot to do with Sharpe's fiction being written around 1970.

Apartheid still had almost two decades left to run before any semblance of discipline disappeared from its uniformed thugs, and the regime surrendered, rather than be toppled by force.

What I'm seeing reminds me of the cops in the dying days of apartheid.

Non of the answers that I've thought of bodes well for the united state regime:

1) more likely; the system is already too dysfunctional to do it.

2) less likely; the lack of leash jerking is deliberate.

If 2), why?

here's a guessThe united state dollar is going to go tits up, very soon.

When it collapses, several million government pay checks and several tens of millions of welfare checks will suddenly not be enough to buy a burger with.

could this be to frighten none blacks into embracing the state and their thugs for protection against the imaginary hobgoblin of rioters and looters?

and provide a fallujah in America as a warning to people with slightly darker skin?

Although fictional, I can tick all of the boxes for the propaganda portrayed in this short clip from the film "V for Vendetta"http://youtu.be/tHsa31hjsog

Your regime is scared - very scared, and the individuals in it are being very attention seeking and needy.

From the clip and from real life: examples of civil unrest: check - Ferguson and ISILEpidemics: check - the way over hyped ebola http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/08/13/ebola/Water shortages and climate doom - check.Not in the clip: Race baiting.

States and their cops don't exist to prevent Hobbesian wars, they exist by creating them.

While there are two sides to a story -- hell, in a town like Ferguson, there are 21,000 sides to the story -- one has to see the larger picture to get a sense of it, and in this case, we see, in the words of Thomas Jefferson:

Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Keith said: "Your regime is scared - very scared, and the individuals in it are being very attention seeking and needy."

Donna from North Dakota replies:Wish I could believe that. To me, the 'ground troops' appear absolutely vacant as they perpetrate their outrages. To escalate the neighborhood dynamic into rage serves someone's purpose.

No doubt, the 'magicians' watch with keen interest as their scientific dictatorship blossoms from the malignant seeds they have so carefully sown among us.

This looks like a perfect case for the application of Title 18, United States Code, sections 241 and 242, with the maximum penaltybeing sought because death resulted from the civil-rights violation. It will be revealing to see how the Holder Justice Department approaches the matter, if at all.

This looks like a perfect case for the application of Title 18, United States Code, sections 241 and 242, with the maximum penaltybeing sought because death resulted from the civil-rights violation. It will be revealing to see how the Holder Justice Department approaches the matter, if at all.

It's an incredibly small population that the cops are goading - if it were for example the city of St Louis, with around 15 times the population that Ferguson holds, the St Louis cops would have done exactly what the LA cops did during the Rodney King riots - hid.

The total population of America is about fifteen thousand times the size of the population of Ferguson.

Bear in mind that after WWii, the might of the Soviet empire, and the total ruthlessness of its system, took around quarter of a century to stamp out significant armed resistance in the territories it occupied. Even then, re invasions were carried out to put down uprisings in Hungary and Czechia.

The united state is about to loose its ability to pay for bread and circuses. When that happens (it's not an if, it's a when) the historical results have usually included entire leadership castes loosing their lives, sometimes, as in Romania, the "leader" and his bitch are murdered by his cronies as they attempt to assuage the crowds and save their own skins and ill gotten gains.

The short youtube clip I gave the link to, gives a good idea of how statists try to trick people into thinking that they need "leaders"

Although I think that institutional incompetence is a more likely cause than conspiracy, I still think that a psychological operation could easily be what some of the statists in America are hoping the activities at Ferguson will achieve.

If Ferguson is a psychological operation, then it is a high stakes game for the statists, if the populations of some of the big cities rise up in sympathy with the residents of Ferguson, the statists would not be able to prevent it.

Without the mind f---ing that the statists appear to be doing in Ferguson, those big inner city populations will rise up when the day comes that their welfare checks won't even buy a machine flipped burger, and the costumed thugs won't turn up for work when their pay checks are equally worthless at the donut store.

Keith ~ I may have been born cynical. I also embrace the adage, "If you aren't paranoid, you aren't paying attention." I read 'Report From Iron Mountain' as a very young 'intellectual' when it was first published. I blew it off as insane. Well...by golly, it is! At the same time, it proved a perfect template for implementing 'the agenda' nearly 50 years ago. Sociopaths just love to tell the common innocents of this world exactly how they will go about tormenting them. I'm not sure they have the emotional capacity for fear.

Local toadies, perhaps, but certainly NOT those multiple generations of 'elites' who have been at this for centuries.

From the article:" Still photographs, reportedly of the incident in the local QuikTrip, show a large young man resembling Brown involved in what appeared to be an assault on a much smaller individual in the store." For the sake of accuracy, the "incident" that you're referring to in your article happened down the street at a convenience store called Ferguson Market, not the QuikTrip.

Smoke and mirrors. Lies, Damned Lies, and the Evening News. I'm with you, Donna - I am so suspicious and skeptical of EVERYTHING we see and hear, that if my own dead mother came back to tell me something, I'd ask her what were her sources. So, apart from the genuine rage of the people of Ferguson, what is at the root of all this militarization of the police, and their training in brutality?

Cui bono? Who is paying for all this, and why - the political antics, the Supreme Court antics, the wars, the riots, the economic collapses, the GMO food poisoning, the drug companies' ensuring their profits by treating people instead of curing them, the Islamic terrorists, the famines, the plagues?

In about 2011 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich did a computerized study of the ownership of the 42,000 largest corporations in the world. By plotting the cross-holding of stock, they discovered that all 42,000 corporations are controlled by only 147 global mega-corporations.

Now, that is real power. Imagine how much economic activity each of the 147 represents and controls.

Second: I was born in 1946. When I was a teenager, around 1960, I remember an article in the newspaper. It said America was the richest country in the world. It was SO rich that - count them - there were 525 MILLIONAIRES in America!!!

In 2009 the Russian government declassified a KGB report from 1959 - 50 years prior - which had studied the wealth owned or directly controlled by the Rockefeller Family - over 1,000 corporations, banks, trusts, foundations, energy companies, and more. Their estimate of the sum total of the Rockefellers' wealth - in 1959 - was $75 billion. Yes, seventy-five BILLION dollars. SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND MILLIONS. In the days when a car cost $1,500 and a nice house about $10,000 and 525 people in America were so happy and proud to be millionaires. I saw another study from 1998, but I cannot call it authoritative, which claimed the Rockefeller wealth in 1998 was $11 Trillion. With a T. The same 1998 study claimed the Rothschilds controlled $100+ Trillion, due to their vast ownership of the interlocking web of central banks around the world. I suppose though, when you can create money at will out of thin air, it is meaningless to put a number on your wealth.

SO: Who among us is immune to everything which causes humanity to suffer, and who can purchase entire governments to do their bidding, and who can engineer wars and economic collapse, then when they are over, buy up the wreckage at firesale prices? Who then, wants, and is in a position, to own and rule the entire world?

I recommend you do some investigation of the "philanthropic" activities of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Institute, and the rest. You will find that whatever they do ends up being "good for business." I could give many concrete examples, but do not want to hog this space.

Those are the people - some 300 families worldwide, many of whom never appear in the "Forbes 400" list - who are running this whole show, with two families, friends for over 100 years, at their head. We can rant and cry, but there is simply nothing we can do to thwart their plans. Things will take their course. When civil war comes to America, or millions die from Ebola, or nuclear bombs go off in New York and Moscow, rest assured, as you take your dying breath, that it is all part of the plan, to make more money and seize more power.

You perform a great service to humanity. You inspire us all by your example, to greater efforts to help our fellow man to achieve justice, happiness, and peace.

My last words, above, may sound like you should give it up. Not at all. Even if nothing changes, the effort to promote justice and truth is pleasing to God. But as a Christian, remember these words:

....And he took Him up into a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and all the power and the glory thereof, and said unto Him: "ALL THIS WILL I GIVE UNTO THEE, IF THOU WILT FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP ME." And He said unto him: "Get thee behind me, Satan."

....And he said unto Him: "Art thou then the King of the Jews?" And He aswered, and said: "My Kingdom is not of this world."

Mr. Grigg, the powers of this world serve the Lord of this world, which is Satan. Let us then serve the Lord of the whole Creation, which made Satan and gave him the power to test human beings, and that is God.

donna to LG & Keith ~LG - Maybe these luciferians you mention above unwittingly serve - in greater or lesser degree - to provide the resistance necessary for individual spiritual development in the rest of us.

I do know...for all their wealth, not one of them has ever created or claimed anything as glorious as the physical earth and its natural inhabitants, nor do they comprehend the joy of true freedom.

Their ONLY power is to destroy - which is really no power at all.

Isaiah 10 12...I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.

13 For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man:

14 And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.

15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood.

There is a great scene in the movie, "A Man for All Seasons," in which Sir Thomas More confronts his lying accuser, Thomas Cromwell, with words to this effect:

More: "One moment, Thomas.... what is this chain about your neck?"Cromwell: "It is the Great Seal of Wales, sir."More: "Remarkable. It is said, Thomas, 'What doth it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, and thereby lose his soul?' but Thomas, alas, Thomas.... for WALES???"

When David Rockefeller and "Sir" Evelyn "de" Rothschild die, as they soon will, both being over 90, I wonder if they will consider the place where they will be spending eternity to have been well purchased with all the trillions of dollars, and millions of human deaths, their 90 years of worldly power have brought them? Ninety years is not a long time. Eternity is. Not only that, but I wonder if they will realize what joy and happiness they have lost for all eternity, in exchange for those 90 years of power and glory?

"Thou hast sold thy [human] birthright for a mess of pottage."

What a great book of wisdom, the Bible. Instead of techniques of domination, murder, and forceful oppression that are taught to our police, they should be made to read the Gospels from end to end, and be tested on them afterwards, before being allowed out on the streets.

To get back to the topic of your article: This ongoing drama is a VERY big deal. Not because one MORE citizen has been murdered by our tax-funded Gestapo Einsatzgruppen, but because the whole world is watching, open-mouthed, the military subjugation of the American people by their own government:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-28827304

Governor Jay Nixon says he is "thunderstruck" at the militarization of the police.... One word, Governor: Bullshit, you lying stinky little pig-turd. You knew damn well.

God bless and keep the soul of Michael Brown. He may not have been a model citizen or a saintly human being, but he was a lot better than the hypocrites in whitewashed statehouses and hyenas in costume who claim to be our betters. (Didn't Jesus say something about whited sepulchers full of dead men's bones?) His sacrifice has finally - finally!! - brought to the attention of the popcorn-munching American public in front of the ballgame on TV, that they are subject to this type of Sonderkommando treatment too, anytime they commit the grievois crime of "contempt of cop."

I said years ago, that if America ever erupts, it will be the black folks who lead it. Whitey is just too comfortable, too meek and rational, and has too much to lose, to ever actually fight back. Our black brothers get mad easily, and have nothing left to lose in this economic order.

Last I looked, I didn't see any black faces in the Rockefeller and Rothschild family photos. Or sitting on the board of the Federal Reserve.

I cannot tell you how happy I am about the great people of Ferguson getting mad as hell and not taking it anymore.

You're a leftist a-hole! Michael Brown was a classic black thug. In a situation without adequate witnesses (and these days, given the intense racism and racial nationalist solidarity of blacks, underclass black witnesses are simply NOT CREDIBLE), who does a civilized Christian man believe - a criminal black with a long violent rap sheet, who had just that very day committed a vicious crime against a smaller, older shopkeeper, or a nice, white, Middle American police officer?

You and your kind make me sick. I agree that there are police abuses, such as happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco. But when dealing with these black criminals, the police are invariably in the right. I've had run-ins with the cops. They were mostly respectful and civilized. The only exception was a run-in with a white (possibly part Latino) creep with weird ink tattoos on his arm, and an earring (!) in one ear - clearly a progressive freak, a "diversity" type who would have been laughed off the force in the good old days, when tough white men in blue maintained American civilization.

We need to support the cops, as long as they are defending the good people of society (note: who are also the ones paying their salaries). And we need to bring back routine use of the death penalty, with dramatically expedited executions (no more 30 years on Death Row; one appeal, followed by immediate hanging). If we were a civilized nation, we would be hanging at least 100,000 (overwhelmingly black) thugs per year. After a few years, the crime rate would be very low, especially if we restored to whites our stolen 2nd Amendment and Stand Your Ground rights.

But you, WN Grigg, are an apologist for criminals and the decivilization of the USA. Shame on you. You are the enemy of the Real America, as much as Obama and his fellow Marxists.

A "real American" never gives the state or its agents the benefit of the doubt regarding the use of lethal force. Any honest observer of police behavior would find the unsupported word of a police officer to be highly suspect.

As former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper -- a representative of both a profession, and ethnicity, you would find intrinsically credible -- points out: "Cops lie. Most of them lie several times a shift, at least." Having a dashcam record of the encounter involving Wilson and Brown would be most enlightening, but the Ferguson PD -- which has such cameras, but never got around to installing them -- doesn't make officer accountability a priority.

Before Waco and Ruby Ridge, there was another high-profile incident of murderous police violence -- the May 1985 firebombing, from the air, of the Move in Philadelphia. Given the ethnic background of the victims, it's not surprising that you omitted that incident from your list. Real Americans don't take melanin content into consideration in assessing incidents of that kind.

Michael Brown apparently had committed a violent robbery a few minutes before he was shot by a cop who did not approach him as a suspect in that crime. But Brown did not, as you claim, have a "long rap sheet"; in fact, according to police, he had no criminal record of any kind (see http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/michael-brown-no-record/14041457/).

You apparently have accepted, uncritically, an internet rumor in which the Michael Brown killed in Ferguson is being deliberately misrepresented as another young man of the same name who lives in another Missouri town about an hour from Ferguson. Then again, you've made it clear that God, or Nature, or something has thoughtfully color-coded the criminal element for our convenience.

Perhaps the analogy I drew with Tom Sharpe's novels set in the murderous police department of an apartheid era small town in South Africa

landed closer to the mark than I'd thought possible.

Sharpe's fictional bufoons, identified themselves as defenders of western civilization,

from such supposed deadly threats as spoof home decor articles, a fetish for rubber and an aged white woman having a love affair with a Zulu cook

- oh, and most dangerous of all; the donation of a copy of Anna Sewell's little girl's horse story "Black Beauty" to the town library. An act sure to topple the values that are the foundation of western civilization.

You have jumped to a number of wrong conclusions. Being white, and raised, to my everlasting gratitude, in white culture, I would always extol the achievements of the white man, in art (Vermeer, anyone?), architecture (St. Peter's Basilica, anyone?, music (Tchaikovsy, anyone?), science (Quantum physics, the Polio vaccine, the eradication of Smallpox,) and much more.

However, among the great achievements of the white race is found a devotion to Justice. Its foundations go back 799 years, to the Magna Carta, on a field at Runnymede in the year 1215.

Other races - the African, the Native American, the Mesoamerican, the Pacific Islander - also found ways to dispense justice, which were different than ours, due to justice being administered in a very close-knit, tribal family setting. Those ways were disrupted and destroyed by the conquering white man, who labeled those races "savages."

When we white men throw Justice overboard, we become no better than the "savages" we enjoy looking down the prominent bridges of our noses at.

Before you respond to this, I demand and insist that you should go to this site:

http://www.policestateusa.com/

and read at least 20 of the hundreds of stories posted there. Go back a page or two - you do not need to read the several lead stories about Ferguson.

This event in Ferguson is mild by comparison. It has, due to the riots and the stupid police reaction to them, captured the attention of the world's media. This event is NOT about Michael Brown and what sort of a person he was. It is all about police brutality and arrogant, unbridled police rage, leading to blood-lusting murder behind a shield of license-to-kill-with-impunity.

And you will see at that site that this is not limited to "black thugs". Here is the story of a young white minister who was shot dead for giving a ride to a poor parishioner:

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/jonathan-ayers/

And the white veteran in hospital, stomped to death by police for trying to leave:

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/jonathan-montano/

Here is an excellent one: 34 cops swarmed a white wedding party in Galveston, beat up 13 guests causing one to have to be Medevaced by helicopter to save his life, all because one cop saw one guest walking outside the venue with a drink in hand:

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/galveston-wedding-beatdown/

There are hundreds more.

America has become a land of lies, selfishness, pornography, trivial murder, casual brutality, wilful ignorance, and blatant and rampant injustice.

You talk about "black thugs". How many black thugs stealing $50 boxes of cigars does it take to equal one Bernie Madoff, stealing $65 billion - with a B - from tens of thousands of widows' life savings, orphans' trust funds, and Jewish charities?

How many "black thugs" beating up some old white lady does it take to equal one Franklin Delano Roosevelt, allowing Pearl Harbor to happen and maneuvering this country into a war it did not want, at the cost of over half a million US soldiers' lives, not to mention 6,000,000 innocent German civilians, 6,000,000 Jews who would probably never have been killed if the Nazis were not losing the war, and about 50,000,000 other noncombatant deaths?

How many "black thugs" holding up a convenience store does it take to equal the 20,000,000 people murdered in cold blood by Josef Stalin? Not to forget the 30,000,000 Russian casualties of the Great Patriotic War?

Or to equal one George W. Bush, lying us into a war that cost us over $3 trillion and cost Iraq over a million Iraqi lives?

We civilized white men have a lot to be proud of, don't we?

We recoil in horror at the savage blacks in Liberia chopping off hands and legs, blissfully forgetting that King Leopold of Belgium started that practice 100 years ago in the Congo, where his agents chopped off over a million limbs. And massacred somewhere between 10 million (conservative) and 20 million (high estimate) "savage" blacks. All in the pursuit of money. What else? Except back then, we refined and perfumed white people sitting in gilded armchairs upholstered in silk damask, under crystal chandeliers in our magnificent salons in Belgium, listening to Chopin recitals on grand pianos built of mahogany wood from the Congo, would have called them something less complimentary than "blacks".

And no, I am NOT forgetting our breathtaking and astonishing achievements which have brought the world from the Dark Ages into the present. May they continue, and may the human race achieve even more magnificent things in the future. And may we white men help it to get there. But, my friend, the record has not been all prizes and gold stars for us good little boys and girls. If we continue the way we are going, in violence and injustice and foul lies, we may yet kill our white selves off, and leave the planet to the "black thugs" and other "savages".

And that is not a hyperbolic statement just for dramatic effect. I see it coming. Fortunately, I'm 68 years old with no children to worry about, and if I don't live much longer, I can say it was a good life. Once Whitey has killed me off along with a few billion others, none of it will matter anymore.

This situation would be no different in the Libertarian Utopia. There would still be black criminals getting shot by security forces, this time private, with same protests, etc. The issue is not State, but Race.

Despite the fact the mainstream media and the state are trying to make this a ''race'' issue or an economic one. The fact of the matter is a young man was gunned down in the streets. shot in cold blood. It is about murder. Where is justice to be had when it is the henchmen for the state that does the killing?

2nd, at issue is the fact that these cold blooded killers have been given immunity from prosecution. The cop shop investigates themselves and always find they did nothing wrong. How is it that those in state issued costume get to be judge, jury and executioner at all and they suffer no consequences themselves?

How is it that these domestic military forces are given a pass and are not subject to the laws they impose on the rest of us? murder is murder...dead is dead.

the perp walks free. He can and will murder other people at will unless something changes.

I agree wholeheartedly that vulgar musical tributes to degenerate violence testify of criminal intentions. Here's a splendid example provided by the Doraville, Georgia SWAT team and its fanboys:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kajhu7qgojU

The problem isn't race, nor is it, strictly speaking, the fictive construct called the "State": The problem is aggression.

Mr. Grigg,I watched the short YouTube video. Excellent example of the mindset, glorifying violence and power.

Mr. Haller,Thank you very much for that link. Yes, no question, Michael Brown was no "Gentle Giant" but a large and disgusting piece of shit, or as you delicately put it, POS. It does not change the fact that he should not have been gunned down without due process of law. Due process protects not only POSs like him, but you and me too. Did you read the links I gave you, or go to that website? The police in America are out of control, crazed with fear and hatred of the public. ALL of the public, including you and me. Being a nice, law-abiding white person, even a young minister of the Church, is no protection against being gunned down with impunity.

As I said, this is not about Michael Brown, and whether he was a POS or not. It is about the police and their brutality, arrogance, and violence. And, incidentally, about their impunity, the fact that they are also given the power to investigate themselves, and inevitably, find that they did no wrong. Even when they shoot an unarmed white minister of the Church inside his own car. Or invade a white wedding - a mob of 34 of them - where people are simply celebrating a joyous occasion, and send many peaceful people to the hospital. What a horrible lifetime memory for that family and their guests, on what should have been a happy day.

Perhaps the best thing Michael Brown ever did in his life was to become another victim. By his death he has, no doubt inadvertently, done a great service to the rest of us.

You know the saying of Dietrich Bonhoffer about the Nazis? - "First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a communist. Then they came for the Gypsies, and I did not speak out, because I was not a gypsy. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and alas, there was nobody left to speak out."

A glorious day! This is what the nation and the world is seeing. Finally, after years of you and sites like policestateusa.com posting stories of out-of-control violent police brutality, the wider public and the world is FINALLY becoming aware of what you and your readers have known for a long time. Oh, joy!

Can you imagine the effect of a photo like that in Europe, Japan, India, China, and all over the civilized world? Can you imagine what this means to the already abysmal image of the US in those countries, which already saw us before this event as the world's greatest threat to peace?

God bless the unruly, thieving, larcenous and violent "niggers" (and I use that word only to illustrate what the white community would call them behind closed doors, not as a pejorative term - I admire and support them 100%) of Ferguson. FINALLY - finally!! as representatives of We The People of America, the glorious citizens of Ferguson have had enough, and will not take it any more. Yes, they are looting and burning, but who cares, the world now realizes what the American Public has to deal with on a daily basis.

People in those countries may even come to like us Americans better as a result of this, after realizing that it is not only them that live in abject fear of the aggression of the US State, but us too.

Do you realize that this world-headline story is the success of everything you have worked for, for years? Things must change now - either the State will become even more violently repressive, or We The People will demand it shall back off, and back down.

Meanwhile mundanes were demonstrating the irrelevance of the state, by doing what the state claims that only it can do - protecting property and personshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/16/ferguson-protesters-guard-stores_n_5684042.html

They have spontaneously created private defense agencies, and they're doing exactly what statists claim that private defense agencies would never do - donate protect the most downtrodden for free.

and go to the last video embedded in that story, you will see that there are plenty of clean-cut young white protesters among the blacks, and all of them, black and white together, are getting along famously. No hostility, no antagonism, but a spirit of brotherhood, from all I can see in that short video. I would venture to guess that those white faces do not live in Ferguson, but have come from afar to show their support, just like people came from afar to support Cliven Bundy.

This is NOT a "race riot" as our asshole politicians would like to brand it, it is a "Justice Riot." And as you observe Keith, the rioters are protecting private property, which the police are not even attempting to do. The police do not exist to protect private property and the lives of the public, but they exist purely as a self-serving gang of extortioners and street thugs, solely interested in their own monetary enrichment at the expense of the public, and in protecting themselves from the anger of their victims.

Thank God too for the world press. If it was not for them, I'm sure we would have seen many dead people in Ferguson, but this cannot happen while the world is watching.

Speaking as a libertarian in the tradition of Rothbard and Hoppe, I concur on the status of police being completely out of control. However, I also think many of my fellow libertarians seem to be of the opinion that the cops and poverty are why blacks have such high rates of violence. Even if the police were demilitarized and drug laws abolished, would blacks cease having a homicide rate with firearms seven times greater than whites, despite whites making up over five times as many members of the population?

As someone who has spent years working with inner city type blacks, I would have to say that the fundamentals would not change. Thanks to LBJ, the out of wedlock birth rate is in the 70 percentage range, and the public schools make sure they are dumbed down. If blacks only commit crimes purely because of poverty, why don't we see similar astronomical levels of violence and crime associated with poor whites or any other demographic?

My point is that police have in large part become militarized with the approval of the public precisely because of roughly 3 percent of the population committing half of the murders every year. It is also the reason that NYC elected a tyrant like Bloomberg to stop and frisk blacks for simply walking down the street - it worked because blacks engage in the vast majority of crime. So while it is easy to blame Presidents for militarizing the police, why would they have done so if it were not overwhelming popular among the public because of the same sort of fears based on crime stats that caused white flight?

Getting into the reasons for this reality is another topic, but it is indeed a reality. I have enormous respect for Mr Grigg and have donated to this blog several times to help keep it running, but I think too many people have a misunderstanding that things would be normal if only the drug war was ended (which I support). What about how there is basically no morality, no family structure, no value on life, no education, astronomical crime rates, vicious attacks on non blacks being both the norm and covered up by the media, gigantic levels of welfare use, and destroying private property on a regular basis like right now in Ferguson because they are mad at a cop who does not own the property?

And before anyone thinks I am some sort of racist, I have had this exact same convo with other blacks who completely agree. They have no idea what to do, but know that the start of this involved the welfare state. However, the stuff in ferguson would look like a walk in the park compared to abolishing the welfare state, so what is to be done? How does one bestow morality upon a people that have had it destroyed?

If we abolished government overnight, the reality is that black crime and murder rate would still be through the roof. As pointed out above, plenty of security types and individuals would end up gunning down blacks for engaging in violence, just as they do now. And just as we have now, the elites would make sure and live far away from any black areas.

My point to the commenters here is that this is a far more complex issue than it may seem, and it can't be blamed soley on the Barney fifes running around in their Delta Force gear. Even Ron Paul has stated he would not abolish the Fed overnight if he had the power because of how so much is dependent on it - just like the welfare state and blacks. Except Wall Street related businesses would not burn down and destroy private property when their welfare checks and EBt cards that both groups feel entitled to were ended.

Back in the 40's and 50's, blacks tried SO hard to be accepted by whites - they straightened their hair, lightened their skin, went to church, spoke like whites, dressed like middle-class whites in suits, nice dresses and hats, tried to get educated and work hard, and what did they get for all that effort? Cross burnings, lynchings, and accusations that black men were out to rape white women and black women were out to steal from their white employers. That their very act of drinking from a water fountain would pollute the water and make it undrinkable by any pure, clean white man. That their filthiness and foul uncleanliness made it impossible for them to sit and eat in the same restaurant as a pure, clean white man. Bathe 20 times a day, it would not help, they would still be filthy and foul. Church bombings, lynchings, sham trials, police dogs, broken heads, and gallons of saliva in their faces.

By the time the whites grudgingly bestowed on them equality of a sort, at least in law, (due purely to political expediency and the recruitment of so many new voters to the Democratic Party,) it seems to me, many blacks were so disgusted with white hypocrisy and sheer nastiness, that they said, to hell with you and your f##king white culture, we will be as "black" as we can be, and you can take your white culture and shove it where you claim your anatomy does not stink.

And exploiters and hypocrites like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson acquired fame and great fortune by playing on those resentments and hatreds. Only as long as blacks remained "victims" could these so-called "leaders" find a following.

But whites are to blame for that too. The one person who had a different, truly liberated and uplifting philosophy, who could have led the black man from the darkness of despair into the sunshine of Great Expectations as the equal and respected colleague of the white man - Martin Luther King, Jr - was murdered by the white man - by J. Edgar Hoover, to be precise. This horrific crime against human decency, human hopes, and human nobility of spirit, consigned millions of blacks to the trash bins of America, and laid the foundation for endless future centuries of conflict and violence. One hopes Hoover suffers for all eternity in the hottest flames of Hell.

This was a tragedy, one of the greatest and most tragic crimes in our 240-year history, equal to if the white South Africans would have murdered Mandela, the only man who saved white society in that country from annihilation by the majority blacks.

Today, I find it hard to understand some black kids. They speak "Ebonics," which is not recognized as a language anywhere in the world except the ghetto. They no longer name their children Jennifer and Paul, but Tameesha and Ja'khana, which means, when those kids send in their resume for a job, it goes directly into the trash. It's hard enough for Jennifer and Paul to get a job. It's beyond impossible for Tawanda and Jo'khomo.

There are millions of successful middle-class blacks. But most of them are of the old school, or the children of those of the old school. And they name their children Samantha and Dennis. How is a Takeesha or a Ja'khano, born to a single mother in the ghetto, supposed to escape? When they are constantly, from birth, told they are victims, and should be angry about it, and should hate whites for their lying hypocrisy and centuries of violent oppression? And they look around at their unemployed and unemployable fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers, sponging helplessly off the charity of the state?

Can you understand, perhaps, their humiliation? Their anger? Their hopelessness? Their shame, at what and who the world tells them they are? How would YOU feel in their shoes?

Contrast this with Jewish kids, who from birth are told they are God's Chosen People, destined to rule the Earth. And they do.

Prophecy is self-fulfilling. Behave like a victim, and you become a victim. Behave like a free man, and freedom will sit upon your head like a crown.

Where do we place the blame? How do we change it? Can it be changed any more? Do you have an answer?

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I will respond to the rest tomorrow, but I did want to address the MLK thing before I turn in for the night. It was none other than Will Grigg himself who shocked me with a column he wrote probably fifteen years ago about MLK that made me realize the Jacksons and Sharptons basically have continued on in exactly the same way as MLK.

Have you read the Playboy interview where MLK pushed for the equivalent of reparations? He argued that because of past injustice, billions of dollars being spent by the whites on them would even out the playing field. He essentially supported the welfare state and affirmative action policies that Sharpton and Jackson do. We have spent far, far more than that amount and blacks are much worse off. MLK basically laid the groundwork for the victim mindset and for the self appointed civil rights leaders like Sharpton promoting the welfare state and racism against whites by blaming them for all of their problems.

I also have a hard time viewing someone who plagiarized his most famous speech, his doctorate, and promoted himself as a man of God while cheating on his wife pretty much on a daily basis with prostitutes and various other women as a wonderful human being. Even though these statements would get me fired at any job today thanks to race being the new red scare, as comedian norm macdonald has noted, these are essential truths. I can see why proponents of the welfare state and affirmative action policies and constantly blaming whitey for everything like MLK, but I don't understand why opponents of the welfare state and the Sharpton/Jackson racist hustlers ever could.

Don't worry, Mr Grigg - I stopped reading the rag you wrote that article in after they fired you!

Hi LG,The conversations I've had the last week have tended to be about old tractors, sheep, cattle, hay, barley and ploughing.

I'll have an ask around amongst some people who watch and listen to the lamestream.

I watched the vids of the Al Jazeera crew, a mile behind the lines of cops getting a tear gas grenade fired into their midst and their cameras getting turned to face the ground. Those cops certainly don't like the idea of any accountability.

With respect to dysfunctional urban communities, I see the exact same thing in the former coal mining, ship building and steel making and textile weaving towns and villages in Britain.

The faces are white, but the incentives, economic barriers and behaviours are the same.

Working with Afrikaans guys in Africa, I used to chuckle about their tales of people referred to with the "k" word, and tell them matching ones of blond haired, blue eyed muppets, who'd turn lobster colour if they were left in the sun for 10 minutes.

The official statistics in Britain do not record a straight "homicide" figure, Instead they record "murder" which requires a murder conviction and a failed appeal. Those caught and convicted are usually crimes of passion, a "hit" would seldom result in an arrest. as a rough guesstimate, multiply the British "murder" rate by ten and you might be in the correct order of magnitude for homicide rate.

On the basis of what I see, Britain's manufactured and non colour coded underclass is performing at least as badly as the more colour coded one that has been manufactured in the united state

Right, but gun control types and British people always bring up murder rate comparisons between the two nations as proof of the need for gun control. Unfortunately, those same people quickly abandon the comparison and scream racism when it is pointed out that the white rate in America is roughly the same as Europe. For instance, 1.9 per 100k of the murders by firearm are done by whites, while 14.4 are done by blacks in America.

There is a giant underclass of very poor whites in America. If it was solely about poverty, why is the white crime rate so low in comparison?

to be counted, there must be a conviction for "murder" and a failed appeal against that conviction.

All of that assumes that there is a suspect arrested and enough evidence put in front of a judge and jury.

With an obvious crime of passion, that is pretty easy - it is often the perp who calls the cops and who is stood there covered in blood. They're probably of little risk to anyone else, but there you go, they'll pad the statistics.

What proportion of homicides actually result in a conviction murder and a failed appeal against it?

Perhaps 10% if you are very optimistic?

The "murder" figures for Britain (incidentally the Scottish figures are about double those of England and Wales) are not comparable with the (still fudged) "homicide" figures for the united police state.

Very disappointed that you so quickly concluded that the officer was guilty, before hearing all the evidence. I know that you have documented mamy instances of police abuse, but I always thought they were well researched. Now that I know your willingness to condemn before having all the facts, it makes me doubht your previous work.

If you've read my previous work you may have come across the essay in which I describe the "Tom Joad test": When we see a police officer beating or shooting someone, do we instinctively side with the cop or the victim?

State-licensed aggressors are never entitled to the benefit of the doubt, in large measure because they often kill in haste and justify their actions at leisure.

During the past week, the process I describe above has unfolded in much the way I anticipated. We've seen a steady stream of leaks from the office of a DA who is among the country's most notoriously prejudiced police partisans, all of which traffic in anonymous "inside information" intended to depict Brown as the aggressor. He may have been. It's likely that we'll never know.

In any case, owing to the "reasonable officer" doctrine, and the low priority the Ferguson PD placed on the use of video recording tech, the outcome of this case is practically a foregone conclusion.

What do you think of so many in the libertarian movement embracing MLK? Your article on him from a decade and a half ago was outstanding and a real eye opener. Do you still agree with those views? I know lew and Ron Paul used to be opposed to mlk, but now seem to have embraced him just as the leftists do.

Martin Luther King was right about the Vietnam War, and had some intelligent things to say about state-imposed segregation. He also had a way with words, albeit of somebody else's composition. When I was at TNA we received a letter from Lew Rockwell pointing out that despite his obvious and plentiful faults King was an opponent of the Warfare State, and was to that extent commendable. I suspect that explains Dr. Paul's view of him, as well.

Thanks for such a prompt response! I agree that his anti war views were great, and should be emphasized. However, I don't really see the rejection of his support that enabled things like the civil rights act, the massive welfare state, affirmative action, supporting reparations, and laying the groundwork for scum like Sharpton and Jackson. The professional race banters on MsNbc like to point out how Sharpton is an extension of MLK, and unfortunately they are correct - no matter how much republican types try to debate this topic.

I am younger than you by a couple decades so I may not have been old enough to remember this correctly, but I seem to remember the Mises crowd as being the only figures associated with libertarians to even dare to bring up those objections besides the ultra rare paleo con like sam francis or paul gottfried, hardly libertarian in nature. It also seems amazing to me that King can not only get away with plagiarism for his doctorate and his most famous speech, but having openly communist advisors on his staff. Of all things, at least that should draw a rebuke from the cons and libertarians of today, but it most certainly does not.

It seems to be ok to judge Thomas Jefferson by today's historical standards for having slaves, yet just a few decades ago a pastor stole his doctorate, cheated on his wife constantly, was inuenced by open communists, pushed through wildly unconstitutional laws, and favored both the welfare state and reparations - and nothing is ever said about it. Do you think the left has won the culture war to the point that it is political suicide to even discuss this?

It reminds me of how up in arms the left and the neo-cons were over the line in the Ron Paul newsletter about order being restored during the la riots when the welfare checks were distributed - then Tom woods posted that ultra liberal robin Williams made that exact joke to huge laughter on the Tonight Show while it was happening. Maybe the culture has just moved so far to the left that libertarian types view it as a losing battle?

Thanks again for your excellent writing and blog. You woke me up to a lot of things with your TNA articles just as you have with this blog. You certainly had a major impact on my views and how I think, which is something I can't express enough in the meager donations I have offered in the last couple years. The world has certainly RunAmok, but you have never stopped fighting the police state and have created a lot of converts along the way. I am pretty sure I have seen this story unfold before with a country Texas doctor swinging at windmills for decades about some obscure banking issue that no one will ever care about :)

I have to disagree with this article, because you're already attaching prejudgements and other "instances" that you feel are similar without knowing the facts of what really happened or how justified the killing was.

Articles like this only prove that no matter how much evidence comes out in support of the officer there will always be people who don't want to accept truth and will villify this officer no matter what. http://writingtheleftunsaid.blogspot.com

Heather, we don't have an incident report from the day of the shooting -- which means that we have no objective way of comparing the story we will eventually receive from Wilson with the version he told investigators immediately after the incident.

So far, Wilson's partisans have retailed rumors and gossip. There is no solid information supporting the claim that Brown was the aggressor.

If Wilson were anybody other than a police officer, he would have been arrested and formally charged with criminal homicide by now. As I indicate above, it seems profoundly improbable that he will ever face criminal charges because of his occupation and its inherent privileges. Ironically, this would also mean that he will never be fully vindicated in the eyes of many.

William what we do have is the initial statement put out by the police department the day after the shooting saying that an investigation was underway and that the officer had indeed been a physical confrontation and that Mike Brown had tried to grab his gun. The allegations that all support for Officer Wilson has been based on gossip is ignoring this fact and also not being sensitive to the investigation that is underway and needs to be protected. Also, trying to make an argument that Darren Wilson being a police officer is somehow preventing real justice from happening is a true distortion of facts.

...what we do have is the initial statement put out by the police department the day after the shooting saying that an investigation was underway and that the officer had indeed been a physical confrontation and that Mike Brown had tried to grab his gun.

That's a press release, not an incident report. Your husband studied to be a police officer; he was, not doubt, taught about the urgent necessity of documenting, in detail, everything about an incident involving the use of force, especially one involving a homicide. Wilson didn't do that. No incident report was completed until ten days later when the St. Louis County PD released a document devoid of all details apart from the location, the shooter, and the victim.

The allegations that all support for Officer Wilson has been based on gossip is ignoring this fact and also not being sensitive to the investigation that is underway and needs to be protected.

If the investigation "needs to be protected," why are people in the St. Louis County DA's office putting rumors and un-sourced gossip into circulation? Why are people credulously treating those rumors as if they were evidence?

This is a very familiar routine: Whenever a police officer fatally shoots someone, his department and the DA will insist that the relevant facts about the officer must be withheld due to the "ongoing investigation" -- even as they chum the media waters with damaging facts, rumors, innuendo, and hearsay regarding the victim.

trying to make an argument that Darren Wilson being a police officer is somehow preventing real justice from happening is a true distortion of facts.

My point is that Wilson, under Missouri law, is considered a "privileged aggressor," and that per the "reasonable officer" standard his subjective perception of personal risk is the key consideration in determining whether the killing is "justified."

That's an accurate description of a system that institutionalizes a distortion of justice.